1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to radio frequency signal filters, and more specifically to printed circuit bandpass filters.
2. Background Art
Television tuners can be classified by the type of circuit used to select the desired television channel. The predominant circuit architectures in use today are single-conversion and double-conversion television tuners.
Single conversion tuners usually require preselection filtering. The preselector must be a tracking bandpass filter in order to reject the image channel, which occurs at twice the intermediate frequency (IF) away from the desired television channel frequency. Tracking filters require expensive manual tuning during the assembly process. Tracking filters can have significant variations in amplitude response over the desired television channel bandwidth. These variations are undesirable in both analog and digital television systems. Tracking filters are also particularly difficult to implement at the upper end of the television band, where the difference between the desired television channel frequency and the image frequency is a small fraction of the desired television frequency. Removing the image channel, under these conditions, requires a bandpass filter with high selectivity.
Double-conversion tuners convert the incoming television signal to a high IF, where most of the out-of-band signals are removed by a narrow bandpass filter. This high IF bandpass filter is usually implemented as either a surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter or a manually-tuned LC filter. The high IF bandpass filter passes a few channels, out of more than 100 channels in the television band. A second conversion brings this relatively narrowband signal composed of a few channels down to the standard television IF at about 40 MHz. A second SAW or LC filter eliminates the remaining undesired channels.
There are several advantages to the double-conversion tuner. First, a tracking filter is not required for image rejection. It is easier to obtain a high level of image rejection with the double-conversion approach, because a fixed surface acoustic wave and a fixed LC filter can be much more selective than a tracking LC filter. Second, by tuning coarsely with the first broad tuning local oscillator, and fine-tuning with the second narrow tuning local oscillator, the necessary complexity of both phase-locked loops can be substantially reduced.
The high IF bandpass filter, which is usually centered a few hundred megahertz above the upper limit of the television band, must be wide enough to pass the desired television channel under all conditions of center-frequency manufacturing tolerance; center-frequency temperature and other environmental drift; and the variability of the high IF center frequency due to coarseness in tuning the first local oscillator.
Each of the described high IF filters have disadvantages. A fixed LC filter is composed of lumped element capacitors and inductors. Variations in the values of these components and variations in the characteristics of the underlying substrate cause a shift in the filter's characteristics, center frequency, bandwidth, etc., during fabrication. To compensate, lumped element filters must be tuned after fabrication. Tuning raises the cost and complexity of the filter assembly process.
Surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters do not require post fabrication tuning. However, SAW filters are relatively expensive and costly to integrate into new circuit designs, and cannot be fabricated at generic printed circuit board facilities.
What is needed is a passive bandpass filter that exhibits high selectivity, low input return loss, low insertion loss, and good image channel rejection. This new filter should also be inexpensive, capable of manufacture at generic printed circuit board facilities and not require post fabrication tuning.